Today's ridiculous neurosis is the horror of physical growth, the growth and maturation of bodies, specifically the size increase. Most discussions of growth focus on aspects like sexual development and other sophisticated notions, in which a process of change is enacted, whereas I'm talking about more basic concepts such as the mere fact of enlargement. To me the reassuring significance of the skeletal system, for instance, is that bones are solid structural objects, the sturdy framework upon which the rest of the corporeal husk hangs. To be too often reminded that the bones have grown from a much smaller size is to have one's cherished falsehoods destroyed. Is my now relatively enormous femur the same femur, in any reasonable sense, that anchored my leg when I was a tot? Are my current adult bones the same bones as before or are they, in a very real way, replacement bones? How many of the cells of my femur were part of it when I was born? How many more are there now, given its massive increase in size, weight, and density? Are these Johnny come lately cells to be afforded the same privileged, 'early adopter' status that my original team cells enjoy? Surely the loyalty and perseverence of these ancient cells should be recognized. I still have the teddy bear that was given to me the day I was born, shouldn't parts of me that old be at least as treasured and singled out? My bones aren't my bones at all, there simply exists some categorical placeholder, some persistence of a stubborn idea, into which the three-dimensional elaboration of hard matter is expressed.

Are there parts of the human body that don't grow at all from birth? Or does every single element of our anatomy undergo a version of this bizarre and monstrous expansion? This sickening and loathsome transformation is so taxing and stressful on the organism that it then almost immediately begins a process of slow and inexorable decay resulting in death, so that one is either growing larger and larger like a monster or one is suffering unstoppable disintegration. Consider the eyes getting bigger, no one ever stops to think about that. Our eyes are the feature most associated with our personality, our uniqueness, and are therefore symbols of the stability and persistence through time of whatever it is that makes us individuals. Yet our eyes are ghastly gigantic caricatures of the eyes our mothers fell in love with as they held our bloody quivering slime-covered bodies after we were violently excreted from their wombs.

Biology is all you need for nightmares, as David Cronenberg knows. Every horrible thought or imagining has its origin in the unbelievable strangeness of what life really is.